


pink panthers

by archerhatesyou



Category: Death Note, Gintama
Genre: Fluff and Humor, cracktastic, does this remind you of anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3100274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archerhatesyou/pseuds/archerhatesyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world's greatest sweet teeth collide when Gin's latest odd job is bodyguarding the world's greatest detective. The boys talk food, fashion, and . . . I don't know, whatever else alliterates with "f". Things get weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pink panthers

"Pretty fancy place," Gintoki observed, mussing his hair. _Must have blown all the dough on the hotel suite before paying me._

Ryūzaki's huge, creepy eyes tracked steadily from his teacup. "Reasonable accommodation for my team's purposes, I assure you."

" _My_ team wouldn't mind reasonable accommodation."

"Terms of service have already been finalized."

Ruffled, Gin watched as slender hands spooned, well, spoonfuls upon spoonfuls of sugar into an otherwise unassuming cup of tea. His mouth grew warm as those hands began to stir, imagining the white grains becoming clearer and clearer as they dissolved, shrinking like sweet prisms reflecting back honey-red ambrosia.

"If you like," said Ryūzaki, disturbing his reverie, "you may have some."

He grimaced. "I shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"My doctor told me, only one parfait a week."

"This is tea, Sakata-san, not a parfait."

"Cups in the cabinet then?" Already he was halfway to the kitchen, but felt investigative eyes on him all the while, irritability prickling his back. _He_ was the hired muscle here, he should be doing the watching. "Oi," he grunted suspiciously upon his return, filling a mug from the water boiler and helping himself to the used teabag from Ryūzaki's saucer. "Need something?"

The stare only bored deeper.

Gintoki, not one to lose any sort of open confrontation, stared back, expecting the pansy detective to avert his gaze. The reality was that he hardly seemed to notice. _Impressive_. "What are you looking at me so hard for, anyway?"

Ryūzaki said nothing, but offered up a cookie.

"If you wanted a food taster, you should have hired my colleague."

"Pardon?"

He took it anyway. Who was he to refuse cookies? "She's got a stomach of steel," he mumbled through the crumbs, "and a recovery time like greased lightning."

"I find that unlikely."

"She's not human."

Ryūzaki tilted his head. "That changes things."

Gintoki leaned back into the couch, fingers woven behind his neck and a strangled sound issuing from his throat as he stretched. He watched steam rise, wafting scentless like fog hanging needily over his mug. "There's a whole lot of nothin' but cake in that kitchen," he said.

"That is untrue. There are also marshmallows and chocolate. Perhaps some jelly beans."

"Graham crackers?"

"That could be arranged."

"Aren't you in trouble with _your_ doctor?"

"No."

"How's that possible, how old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

Gin grumbled, shifting his shoulders against the couch. "Not fair."

"And how have you come upon such an uncommon hair color at your age?"

He pulled at the skin under an eye, inviting inspection.

Ryūzaki leaned in and peered at his irises. It made Gintoki a little uncomfortable, like eating beef tongue. Just sorta wrong, in a way. "No," said the detective quite definitively, "they're more like rust than pink. And your skin is insufficiently pale for albinism."

Gin shrugged. "They say you are what you eat." He twiddled sugar-white hair in his fingers, pointing with the other hand. "You watch yourself."

"I hope it wasn't the doctor that told you that."

"May have been. I think he's manipulating me."

"Wise."

"The doc for doing it, or me for suspecting?"

"That was purposefully equivocal."

"Do you _have_ to show off with such big words?"

"It means—"

"I know what it means. You're just annoying."

"I don't intend to show off. I simply prefer efficiency of speech."

Gin narrowed his eyes.

"I know of only one other person with hair like yours," the detective mused.

"So do I, and he was kind enough to bequeath unto me a paternity scare when he kicked the bucket."

Ryūzaki's pinkie hooked into the corner of his mouth. "You're a fascinating man."

"Eh? You should see yourself. Do you always sit like that?"

"Yes."

Expecting no elaboration on that front, Gin clicked his tongue. "What about me interests somebody like you?"

"You speak rather callously," said Ryūzaki, "but I detect no true malice."

"Me? I'm harmless."

"The wooden sword says otherwise."

"Okay, I'm harmless unless threatened, just like every other animal in the universe."

"In the interest of time I'll refrain from arguing the literal implications of that statement."

"'Preciate it."

"But you wear the fact of your violence out in the open. I deal with duplicitous folk with such frequency that I value the honesty in that bokken."

"I'm nothing if not honest."

"And full of jelly beans."

"How'd you know?"

"It was a joke."

"Ah." Gin lowered his head. "Like a call-back."

"You also made no attempt to conceal their sound in the glass dish. Or chew with your mouth closed."

"Look, if you've got something to say to me, just say it."

Ryūzaki picked up his spoon, giving his tea a useless stir. "Have you ever tried unrefined sugar with tea?" he drawled, watching as Gin heaped sugar into his own cup. "It's quite delectable."

"What is it?"

"Sugar without the molasses taken out."

Gintoki moaned before he could temper his response, so he cleared his throat, hitting a fist against his chest for good measure. "Do you have any?"

"I don't bring it out for guests."

"You ask me that and then don't offer? And where did those strawberries come from?" Ryūzaki was absently plucking the leaves from a small bowlful of them. "That's the least you could do to apologize for being _such_ a rude host, is give me some."

"This is a job, is it not, Sakata-san?"

"Don't give me that shit. A _strawberry_ , I said."

"You've been paid in advance. I owe you nothing." Gin's fingers twitched, and Ryūzaki eyed him warily, clutching the bowl closer. "They're my strawberries, besides."

"You wouldn't want to mess with me."

"I could take you."

"Come _onnnn_ ," Gin whined, "fruit is the only sweet that won't count against me."

"That's hardly my problem. You already ate that cookie."

"Because _you're_ an enabler."

"The jelly beans weren't my fault."

"They were out in the open! Fish in a barrel!"

"You ought to have better self-control."

"Misdirection won't fool me, we're talking about my strawberries here."

"There are no such strawberries."

"Please?" No reply. Gintoki crossed his arms and sighed in frustration. "I _like_ them more than you, how's that?"

"You cannot possibly have quantifiable evidence for such a claim."

"Oh?" He stood, slipping the heavy white kimono from his shoulder and tugging at the ends of his obi.

"There's no need for obscenity, Sakata-san," Ryūzaki said, watching with disinterest as Gin's belt buckle clinked.

As he turned his back to Ryūzaki, Gintoki said, "Here's your evidence," and shucked his pants to his knees, thereby exposing the glory of his strawberry-laden shorts.

Gin's mouth turned up in a triumphant, lopsided grin when he spun back to find the detective gaping. "Now," he said stiffly, zipping himself back up and gathering his kimono, "I'm so allergic to strawberries I'm _not_ eating that I can't be in the same room with them, so if you need me, I'll be just outside the door."

* * *

L peered with a measure of suspicion at the call button on the intercom, before giving it a calculated _tap_. "Watari."

"Yes?" came the fuzzy reply.

"Pull the addresses of all retail stores within a thirty kilometer radius."

"Of course. May I ask what for?"

L was admiring his red-stained fingers, familiar twists and whorls like the sand in a carefully-cultivated rock garden. "I believe it's time for me to update my wardrobe."


	2. omake

Gintoki sat back against the wall, bokutō stuck out straight before him. What an old piece of garbage. He was amazed any of them ever held up. If old Tōyako wasn't an hallucination (which, well . . .), then maybe he'd been right; Gin wouldn't mind busting out a super or a fatality or a bankai or whatever right about now.

"Shit." He let the sword fall with a wooden clatter. "My fucking tea is in there."


End file.
